Helen Mathey-Horn's Blog, page 32

First Love?

This is not going to be as personal as you might think, although as a writer perhaps it is. Huh?

My daughter-in-law asked me to write a blog about my favorite characters in the books I’ve written. And I’ll have to say the couple is Teryn and Rabisle from the Dream Warrior series. Teryn did things in her past that has left her very doubtful about how ‘real’ love is. If you can manipulate a person’s mind and their emotions with dream, can you trust that they really love you?

It doesn’t help that Teryn and Rabisle are sworn enemies. After all, in the past he killed a friend and try to kill her also, and recently burned the castle she was supposed to defend to the ground. And their personalities are diametric opposites. Rabisle’s is an easy going, drinking buddy kind of camaraderie and Teryn is very uptight, always worried about measuring up as a woman in a man’s world.

Even so, they make a matched pair in combat, fighting to a draw which for Teryn is a first as she has always been able to best any fighter. And Rabisle seems to get a kick out of her determination to hurt him, if she can. This is not Romeo and Juliet. Although the Montagues’ and Capulets’ feud would not be out of line for their attitudes.

Do they reach that ‘happily ever after’? Or is it as Teryn’s mother will say, “This is life, Teryn.  It seldom continues happily ever after.  We shall have to wait and dream.”

If you are interested, the book is available on Amazon.

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Coming up on Valentine’s

I love flowers. It does not matter what time of year or what ‘excuse’ for buying them. I used to send them to my mom and aunt regularly from overseas. I had the local florist’s number in my phonebook and I would just time my call to be during their work day. I called so often they had my credit card on file, the addresses I sent flowers to on file and I let them pick out what they thought would look cheerful (especially in the dead of a northern Illinois winter). I would send flowers for Valentine’s Day also, but let them know they did not have to arrive before the day was over. I knew that was usually one of their busiest days and I was in no hurry, being miles away.

The florist I used was across from the VFW in my hometown. My dad was a veteran of the Korean War (Conflict) and helped with many things at the VFW from maintenance to helping clean the taps weekly, but I digress. So he was a ‘known’ person there.

The person who ran the floral shop also attended the VFW events and when talking to my dad one day said, “You must love your wife. I’m always making floral deliveries to your house.” My dad kept mum and accepted the praise, but he did confess the story to me later in one of my phone calls home. No hard feelings about him getting the credit.

So I don’t know what you do for Valentine’s Day, but as for me…skip the chocolates if you can only buy me one thing…buy me flowers.

And just because she was told when we were out today, that she should have been in the dog show, Apache with her ‘Valentine’ on.

3-Bean Salad

You know the one. It always shows up at the family reunion food table?

My cousin sent an email this morning asking if we remembered a family reunion in the 70’s were every aunt brought a 3-Bean Salad. It must have been the ‘salad’ of the year, if all of them were on the same wave length.

In spite of that, she could not find her mother’s recipe for it and was asking if any of the rest of us had a copy. I was (and still am) not a fan of the 3-Bean Salad. I think it is the wax beans or maybe the kidney beans that throw me off it.

I do have a favorite ‘pickled’ salad loosely based on a ‘Greece Salad’ that I make, where I kept all the parts I really like and left out the ones I like less. When I take it to a gathering I usually have nothing to take home. At one event with an international mixture of people, I was getting ready to take home the small last little bit and a Persian gentleman asked if he could have it. High compliment.

So here is my favorite salad.

2 Red Peppers – cleaned, cut into pieces (I like them fairly large) sautéed in olive oil, let cool. Mix with a jar of kalamate black olives (drained) Feta Cheese cubed (I buy the block that is about 4×4 inches) olive oil balsamic vinegar Italian spices (dried in a jar) All these quantities are variable (lol)  If you like more olives, use more olives.  I do mix the oil and vinegar and then pour over the rest.  Stir it up, put it in the refrigerator if you aren’t going to eat it right away.  Actually it gets better as it sits.  

Manga, manga!

Wimpy Snow Day

In the pictures what you can’t see are the few flakes of snow drifting past. They’ve been doing that all day long. The thermometer on the porch (up against the wall of the house) is at 31oF, so I’m assuming it is colder away from the building. This is at 2pm, so yeah, it’s been a cold day.

The kind of day to stay inside and nap in front of the fire.

The kind of day in which I should devote some time to writing.

I did devote sometime to crocheting on the Sweet Pea Afghan. I have one more color to complete for Part 4, so I’m only one week behind now? (It isn’t really a race, I’m just afraid if I get too far behind I’ll never finish.) It is really a nice winter project as it is now big enough to keep me warm as I crochet. I just can’t seem to do more than about 4-6 rows at a time (that translates into 2-3 color changes). I should pick it up and do another color and finish week 4.

This is the kind of weather that makes you grateful for furnaces and fireplaces.

With this enforced indoor time, I should work on writing. (Other than the blog writing.) So hopefully you are warm and to my friends in Germany…yowzers!

Love those frozen drops. They happened last night.

Dawning

So one more book is out. It is part of the Tienna World series. This one takes place during a period of unrest due to a missing heir. Eighteen years earlier the ruler of Gengria, the largest kingdom, was murdered and his pregnant wife disappeared. No one with the proper birthmark had been found to take over control so the dead ruler’s brother assumes the position as regent. He has been happily consolidating power unto himself.

Now out of the northern part of Gengria comes a young woman, Dawning, with the proper mark, but no explanation for where she has been all this time. Her appearance is about to undo the last eighteen years and those who had anything to do with her parents’ fates had best beware of her and her adopted four-footed family.

Ground Hog Day

Yes, I’m a day early, but is it see the shadow and six more weeks of winter, or not see the shadow means six more weeks of winter? Honestly, I don’t think it matters either way, six more weeks of winter.

Growing up in Northern Illinois, February was the LONNNNNGGGGGGEEEEEEESSSSSSTTTTTT month. I appear to be susceptible to SAD (seasonal affective disorder). Lack of daylight drives me into ‘cabin fever’. I was never into outdoor winter sports. I think I might have had frost-bitten toes early in childhood, so I just don’t like being out in the cold. And being inside is crazy making. Not that I didn’t have things I could do, I just couldn’t focus on doing them. Enough, winter needs to end. Spring, Summer and Fall are my seasons!

So Ground Hog Day…the movie…also has a connection to my hometown. Not Punxsutawney, Philadelphia where the movie ‘supposedly’ takes place, but Woodstock, Illinois where they shot the movie. I was not at home anymore when the cast and crew descended on Woodstock and when the movie came out. My dad said everyone in town went to see the movie twice. Once to see what local people and places they could identify in the movie and the second time to see the movie. (Sorry Bill Murray)

I know what Dad meant. I didn’t recognize faces, but oh the places, starting with the Woodstock Square, a park in the dead center of town that has one-way traffic around it, which through various high school classes over the years was where you went to drive your car around and around and be seen. (Small town what can I say.) This is the location of the ‘festival’ in the movie. Next the ‘hotel’ that the weather casters were staying at in the movie is actually the Opera House, built with Carnegie money. Yes, that Carnegie, he donated money to build such structures (and libraries) across the US. The front is impressive and makes a good looking ‘hotel’. I actually ‘trod’ the boards in two different productions there, both during high school years, so I can put my name up there with other famous people who have, including Orson Welles, who attended the Todd School for Boys (aka delinquents) in Woodstock and took part in plays there.

Then there is the café, which now is a real café but was a general type store at the time and the movie theater down the street and finally the Bed and Breakfast, that Bill Murray’s character stayed at. It was a block over from my Grandparents house. I went to high school with the kids that grew up in that house. So like Groundhog Day, it is ‘Deja vu…all over again.’

Here’s to hoping the groundhog sees/doesn’t see his shadow. Which ever one it is that will give us less than six more weeks of winter.

Sweet Peas at the end of January

When Attic24 announced a crochet along (CAL) that would involve the colors of sweet peas, I fell. I mean, I have enough fiber (not just yarn) in my house to insulate said house thoroughly and to outlast me even if I spent every day, knitting, crocheting, weaving or just making yarn balls. (This is called SABLE by those in the know – Stash Acquisition Beyond Life Expectancy)

But I have a soft spot for sweet peas (okay for any colored yarn and almost any flowering plant). My Aunt Norma loved sweet peas, and grew some of the loveliest, delicately colored ones in an area that was against her garage wall, facing south. The memory of those blooms and the AROMA! is firmly lodged in my brain. Sooooooooo, yes, I want those colors and yes, I’ll crochet that blanket. So I bought the yarn pack. The directions are free on line, go to Attic24.

Supposedly I am crocheting Week 4 with directions for Week 5 to come out tomorrow. Well, I’m not doing too badly, I am just finishing up Week 3. (Just past where the white ends 3/4ths from the bottom.) And the picture I’m posting is Lucy’s (Attic24 author). I don’t feel like a complete slacker, but on the other hand, Lucy is crocheting two, TWO, different variations of the same color way, and taking pictures, and writing posts and raising three children (two of them teenagers so that should count double) and well, shoot! But I am only a week behind and it is at the length now that it makes a good, warm lapful during this cold winter weather.

Stay warm. Knit on! Ah, Crochet on!

And for the record, Lucy doesn’t know me from Adam, I’m just posting this because I love her blog, her color sense and this particular blanket.

And another look at Lucy’s blanket (so far) just because it is so freakin’ beautiful and don’t we need some beautiful color right about now?

Bait

This is the last of the currently available books of mine for sale. It is science fiction. Of the four books involving characters from Tienna’s World this would be the last in the sequence of those currently published, if that matters to you when you read a series. Unfortunately, if you do read sequentially, there are ‘missing’ stories to be published for the future. Fortunately, each is ‘stand alone’ so you won’t missing anything by reading “Bait” first.

The story involves one of the newest generation of offspring, Lawran. Her grandparents appear in Uptimers and she is part of a long lineage of rulers on Tienna’s World that have the advantage of telepathy and foresight when it comes to being able to rule. The telepathy comes in two variations, the ruler has the ability to see divergent paths and what future they might lead to and direct the present down selected paths. The second type is more immediate and is the ability to see sources of danger and how to avoid them. Those that can foresee danger have usually become the warrior-side of the ruling group and both abilities have come down primarily through a few families, so when Lawran is born into one of the major dynastic families with NONE of the family abilities it is a blow to all involved. It would have been better if she had been born deaf and dumb.

She still is a very able warrior and with a suggestion from her ‘uncle’ Lee (a family friend you met in ‘Uptimers’) she leaves her home planet and joins CONTROl as a time agent. But that doesn’t work out either, because although she has none of the definable psychic skills of her parents and family, she seems to attract attention of a sexual kind. In another time or place she might be deemed a witch for such animal magnetism. However, it doesn’t help her get field work with CONTROL. Which leaves her training new recruits and quite frustrated, until ‘uncle’ Lee decides to use her abilities to lure out a target on Welstar (a rather pathetic world). A target that he has been unable to locate, but who is having a major impact on the future timeline in that area. A target that has a thing for beautiful women. Since Lee can’t be visible, the beautiful woman needs to be able to manage on her own on a world that doesn’t have much going for it. You can’t even stay there unless you can prove you have your own water supply.

And there is one more reason Lee feels Lawran will fit right in. Welstar was once populated by telepaths until they were driven off planet. Telepaths that eventually ended up on Tienna’s World. So she is going back to the ancient origins of her family and her genetic markers will not signal that she is from off world, way off world, if someone is suspicious of ‘plants’ and someone, or two, on Welstar is very, very suspicious, and deadly.

Lawran jumps at the chance and now she has to just be the bait, trusting that Lee will show up in time if anything starts to go wrong. And what could go wrong on a planet that has psychedelic drugs that bind you with their use, people looking to collect perfect specimens of women for their collection (think mounted animal trophy style), the fact your boss doesn’t like you and someone is stealing artifacts from the museum you work for. Oh, and the one person who takes an interest in you is a cheap, greasy, low-life that won’t leave you alone.

Welcome to Welstar. Hope you like it dry and dusty.

‘Bait’ is available on Amazon. And if you read it and like it, would you be so kind as to right a review for it on Amazon. Thank you.

Uptimers

I’m going to do two posts today, because 1) my blog, my rules and 2) I want to keep with the book synposi.

Uptimers is a book my husband and I co-wrote when we first met. He liked a character of mine, (Teryn from Dream Warrior – see earlier post) and wanted to use her in a book idea he had. So we did.

This was one of those, Douglas Adams kind of books, where anything might happen and seems to have done so. We played ‘fast and loose’ with past Earth history and future Earth history. If you are writing a book about time travel, it seems like you should be allowed to write the history you want.

We stuck mostly to places we knew something about (either through travel or studied history – Don’s a history major, I’m a history reader), so we included Iwakuni-Japan, Rome (of Caesar), Agincourt (the one where Henry wins), Lincoln-New Mexico, Dallas-Texas, Mars Colony, Meepus IV, Nerd World and somewhere in the very distant future, even uptime from our ‘heroes’ own time.

Oh, did I not explain these are time travelers? And their job is altering history, sometimes by assassination. But someone is out to get them, which they take exception to. It becomes a fast and loose cat and mouse game through time to see if they can avoid those sent back to stop them before they can get to the asshat who has it in for them.

Uptimers can be found on Amazon. And if you read it and like it, would you please leave a review on Amazon? Thanks.

The Mathey in Me

Don’t know if other families have similar interests, but in my family if it was mechanical, or involved problem solving we were there. A piece of paper and numerous pencils and pens lived on the kitchen table for those moments you had to draw out what you were describing.

My dad grew up on a farm in Wisconsin in the 1930’s, problem solving…you farmers know what I mean…was a way of life. He ended up working in a factory, but he was the ‘tool and die’ man, that is the guy that fixed whatever broke on the line and made sure the drill bits and any other cutting edge had an edge that would cut. He was so good that he could get the proper angle on a bit by eye-balling it. He was checked, and damn if he didn’t have it right! Sharp objects and problem solving.

My family can, or could when we were younger, demonstrate the primate skills of tree climbing. All three of my brothers had amazing upper body strength, climbing the trees in the yard was…child’s play.

So when it was time to ‘trim’ or cut down trees why bother getting anyone to come in and do it, get the Jonsered fired up and go to it. (Chainsaws are/were a preferred tool…Dad and Uncle Nick cut the opening for a new sliding door with a chain saw…doesn’t everyone?)

So where is this leading? How about that quotation, “I love work, I could watch it all day.” For unknown reasons, the neighbor behind is having (‘has had’ by now) a 50-60 foot tree taken down. It might have been taller, not a good judge of height, just know this is a BIG tree. I’ve been watching the guy in the tree, place ropes (on the piece he is cutting to lower and his safety rope) for the last day and a half. A primate ballet in the treetops if you will with sharp objects.

I find it interesting…it’s the Mathey in me. And then I get to thinking about all that ‘free’ firewood they are cutting up and carting away. Yeah, we like our fires too. Can’t quite work up the nerve to ask for the wood. The last time we had tree work, I did ask our guys to chunk up the wood into pieces at least smaller than three foot, so I could burn them in the fireplace. Honest I can get three foot lengths in there. Problem is ‘lifting’ a three foot piece of wood if it has any diameter at all. But hey, it’s free. (If you don’t consider you paid to have it cut out of the tree.)

So there, climbing, cutting up trees and fires…it’s the Mathey in me.